French Citizens file a Petition against Brigitte Macron’s position as First Lady

Brigitte Marie-Claude Macron, the former high school teacher who dated and later married her student, has been in the spotlight for different reasons since her younger lover Emmanuel Macron was elected into office as the president of France.

Disgruntled citizens recently filed petitions against an initiative from Mr. President who intends to create a political office for the 64-year-old First Lady as is obtainable in most countries.

Over 90,000 signatures have been registered on Change.org a national equality website which aims at fighting discrimination and corruption, while promoting accountability, democracy, and rule of law.

The petitions bemoans Mr. President’s recommendation which, if enacted, would confer on Brigitte Macron some financial benefits as the country’s First Lady.

Petitioners are against any unnecessary cut from the French budget which would be used to run an Office of the First Lady and pay allowance/salaries to aides.

“Brigitte Macron currently has a team of two or three aides, as well as two secretaries and two security agents. That’s enough,”says the petition with an increasing number of signatories.

Mr. Macron said during his presidential campaign that he’d map out the first lady’s roles in governance, and highlighted that her bills won’t be paid from public coffers.

The president took office in May.

Brigitte is 24 years and 8 months older than her husband who described their relationship as “a love often clandestine, often hidden, misunderstood by many before imposing itself.”

The First Lady never held any political office although she contested for Truchtersheim’s city council in 1989 and lost.

“I will have the role that she always had with me, she will not be hidden,” Mr. Macron said after his success at the polls.

A top adviser in his government said “her presence is essential for him.”

The First Lady wedded a banker named André-Louis Auzière on 22 June, 1974. They lived in Truchtersheim before relocating to Amiens in 1991. Her marriage crashed in 2006.

Emmanuel Macron does not have any child with his wife Brigitte, who has 3 children (a lawyer, engineer and cardiologist) from her previous marriage.

Although their wedding took place in 2007, the president made it clear in an interview with BMFTV that they’re not looking forward to making babies. He already has step-grandchildren.

“We have chosen not to have children. A choice that was not selfish for me,” he told BMFTV. “It is a choice that has been assumed, which I had to make very young given the age difference.

“I did not need my biological children and grandchildren to give them as much love as I gave them.”

Macron was recently rumored to be gay. He was accused of having intimate ties with Radio France CEO Mathieu Gallet.

“If you’re told I lead a double life with Mr. Gallet it’s because my hologram has escaped,”he joked about the rumors during a political rally earlier this year.